Transcription
Google search ads are in the process of completely changing, and this change is happening fast. Now, the good news is that this massive change represents a really big opportunity for Google advertisers, but you need to know what's actually happening and the adjustments that you need to make to your Google search ads to take advantage of it. That's exactly what I want to show you how to do in this video. So let me start by giving you a stat that kind of blows my mind, honestly, and that's that 15% of all daily Google searches are brand new. 15%! That means they've never been searched for before.
If you think about that, that that basically doesn't really make sense, cuz you're thinking, think how long Google has been a huge part of billions of people's lives. Think of the trillions and trillions of searches that have taken place over the last 20 plus years on Google. How have all the things that people search for not already been searched for? Like, surely at some point someone has searched for all the things that people now search for. No. Not only is that not the case, it's still 15% of new Google searches are brand new, like that. That's just crazy.
Now, if people's search behavior had remained the same since Google became the the dominant search engine, that would not be true. That percentage of new searches would be far, far fewer because, just statistically, people would have searched for all the things that people um typically search for, and it would be nowhere near as high as 15% of daily searches being brand new. But the reason why this is the case is because search behavior has changed. One of the big ways, way that search behavior has changed is people are putting more information into Google when they're searching. So they're searching for longer and longer search terms. Ten years ago, 15 years ago, people might have searched for very basic things, but as Google has become more sophisticated as a search platform and people have gotten used to that, they've adapted and adjusted their behavior; they are now asking for more specific information. How do you do that? You create longer searches, sort of longer tail uh, you provide more information. So instead of, let's say, previously you wanted a pizza restaurant, you might just search for pizza restaurant. Now you might get more specific, knowing that Google is more likely to be able to provide you with the information you're looking for. So instead of just pizza restaurant, you might say pizza restaurant near me that has easy access parking, or pizza restaurant near me that is child-friendly, has a play area, pizza restaurant near me that is open 24/7. Users of Google search are giving more information because they know Google can handle it and give more information back, give more specific search results. So that is a trend that has been happening over a number of years. I think that is going to continue to happen, and actually that number, that 15% of daily Google searches being brand new, I think that's actually going to increase. If in 2 years' time we revisit this stat and it's 25%, 30%, I wouldn't be surprised.
You might think, well, over time, surely the number of brand new daily searches—no one's ever searched for it before—should decrease. That would be true if we weren't about to see even more changes in people's search behavior when they're actually searching on Google. And the main reason for this is AI. Now, AI is already being used in Google search, and increasingly so. Not all search is on Google by any means, but when you're searching in Google, you are more and more likely to see an AI response alongside traditional search results, and that is a trend that's obviously going to continue, obviously going to accelerate, and there's going to be more and more AI integrated in into regular Google search, and we're going to see more and more AI-based answers. Now, it will take people a bit of time to adjust to that. Most people searching on Google aren't necessarily looking for an AI response; you know, they've had years, decades of operating with Google search in one way; they're looking for traditional search results, but they might see the AI response: "Oh, that's actually quite useful, that is what I was looking for, that saves me having to troll through the various options. Great, okay, got that information." So user behavior will change over time as more and more people get used to this, and they are looking, they're going to Google looking for an AI-based response to the search, not just traditional search results.
And if you think about what that will therefore do to their search behavior, I think one of the best ways to think about this is to think about if you use ChatGPT. How do you interact with that when you're wanting to find out information—not asking it to write Google ads headlines or something like that, right—but asking it for information? What's the difference between that and how you might search for something in Google? Well, I think there are a few core differences, right? So firstly, longer inputs: you're probably going to provide ChatGPT with more information than you would search on Google. Secondly, is going to be when you're communicating with chat, asking it questions, asking it to find you something—like I've done this recently, asking to find me a hotel for a vacation. When you do that in Google, you get a bunch of results; you might look at them: "No, not quite right," come back out, search for something else. When you do that with something like ChatGPT, I think you are much more likely to get some results and then refine, so then go back and say, "Oh, this one's not quite right, this one's, you know, not in the right location, I'm not sure that's as kid-friendly as I want, I'm not sure that's maybe a bit expensive," can come up with some other options. So that creates much more of a conversational experience. I know ChatGPT isn't thought of as a search, but imagine that in Google search when AI is much more prevalent—it's a much more conversational experience between you and your Google search engine, even if it is AI-based. I think that as people get more and more used to the fact that they're going to get an AI-based response and they change their behavior to do this more and more and more, that's going to lead to some significant changes to to Google search as a whole, and therefore what we need to do as Google advertisers to take advantage of this. I think there's a really big opportunity, and I'll get to those in a minute. Before I do, just want to quickly let you know about how done-for-you Google ad services. If you want my agency to create, manage, and optimize Google ad campaigns for you, we can keep up to date with all the changes to Google ad search and and all sorts of other aspects of Google advertising to get the best possible results. We can take all that workload off your hands, almost certainly get you significantly better results than if you manage it yourself, because we do this all day, every day. We spend millions on the platform over many, many years. So if that sounds interesting, you can book a free call with one of my team members; there is a link in the video description below. Just click on that, come through to a page, book in a free, no-obligation call, and hopefully we get a chance to work together.
Okay, so I talked a second ago about the changes in user behavior um to search, and if you're thinking about how you interact with ChatGPT, Google search looking more like that in uh in future years, what does that mean for us as advertisers? Well, I think the first thing to note is that it means there's going to be more searches, more search volume, which is great news for us advertisers—more opportunities to put ads in front of people that we know are interested in our products and services, get more customers, get more leads. Why does it lead to more searches? Well, think about back to that that that example that I gave: when you're searching in Google, if you don't find the right thing, you're likely to bounce out, search again, check through a few of the results, maybe search results. Maybe that's how you'd interact with a ChatGPT-style experience—you're asking it to refine. So whereas with the Google equivalent you might have two or three searches in that little mini search session as it were, with a more AI-based search experience you might have seven, eight, nine searches because you're, "Oh no, that's not quite right, actually I'm looking for places a bit more luxury than that, I'm looking for somewhere that's closer to the beach," you know, I'm using the hotel example, "I'm looking for something that's kid-friendly, something that's close to the airport, oh I need it to have a swimming pool," whatever it is [Music]. Right? So you're going to have more searches, and you're going to be providing more information as the searcher to what will be Google, which is not only great for advertising in terms of more potential options to put ads in front of people, but it provides you as the advertiser with the potential to put ads in front of people that have provided more clarity around exactly what they're looking for, and you can therefore decide, "Actually, they've asked for something there that I don't provide," because they've provided more information. "Great, I don't my I don't want my ad to appear in front of those," I can have negative keyword set up for some specific things that yes are related to my product/service, but actually aren't quite, you know, if they're asking for that, I'm not quite right for them. And on the other hand, if they're asking for these things that are very much—I'm perfectly suited for someone that's interested in this, I'm perfectly suited for someone that wants the hotel right near the airport that's really kid-friendly that's not too expensive—like that's exactly what I provide as an example, then you can absolutely make sure your ads are in front of those people. You can put ads in front of people more often; you might be willing to pay more in terms of cost per click, more to get that person onto your website because you know they're more likely to convert. So I think that extra information is a really big opportunity um for advertisers.
So how would you go about adjusting your ad campaigns to take advantage of this? I've got a few notes um that I that I want to cover. As people are increasing the length of the searches, we can increase the length of the keywords that we're targeting. We can not just go after the short, high search volume keywords, but also incorporate a lot of the longer tail keywords that have more words that get searched for less often, but might have a lot more buyer intent, might be much more likely to convert, and often are less competitive in terms of other advertisers looking to bid on them, so they might well be cheaper in terms of getting to the top of that Google search results page and getting them in front of the people that you really want them to be in front of. So it provides us to be able to do that. We can be more specific with our keyword targeting, more aggressive with our negative keyword list. Like I said, you know, let's keep with the example of, you know, you're advertising a hotel. Someone's been really specific because they've gone back and forth with like an AI system like a ChatGPT or what what Google search will become with all the AI integration, and let's say you don't have a heated swimming pool in your hotel, but someone has specifically asked for that in their sort of search experience, going back and forth, refining it—maybe that's important to them. Well, you could add that in as a negative keyword; you could have "heated pool" as a negative keyword. That would normally seem like you're being far too specific; you're going to miss out on potential clicks, but is that person going to become a customer if they come through to your website, find out you don't have a heated swimming pool, and that's really important to them? Probably not. You're better off spending your money elsewhere. So that would be a very specific example of something that you could do, and there will be many cases of that within your world, as it were, your Google search world, the terms of people are searching for, what really matters to them, the the features thereafter, and all that sort of of stuff.
How would you implement this into a Google ad search campaign? Well, one of the things that I've been calling for for a while, and I think with this trend this becomes even more important, is more ad groups. So instead of having broad ad groups with lots of different types of keywords in them, you separate things out into more ad groups; you get more specific on your keyword theme. You're like, "Right, this ad group only has very specific keywords in it targeting this quite specific thing," then you can tailor the ads, the responsive ads in that ad group, to those searches. So you make sure that the language in the search matches the language in the ads, matches hopefully, you know, when they come through to the landing page, and people really feel like when they're looking for something more specific, that's why they provided more information because they want something that ticks these boxes, that is more specific, that your ad makes it very clear, "Yeah, and we're perfect for that. Look, we've got this, this, and this. What you've talked about in your search is is all over my ad copy, come through and check us out and book our hotel or buy this product or inquire about this service," um and all that sort of stuff. So like I said, I like this optimization anyway; I think this is going to become more and more important. You may also be able to go one step further and create more specific offers going forward. So if everyone's only searching using "pizza restaurant," for example, well, what do you want to provide as the offer? A pizza restaurant discount on pizza? Two-for-one special? Wednesday night deal? Whatever it is, right? But if there's more and more people searching for more specific things like "pizza restaurants that are friendly for kids," maybe you go, "Oh, you know what, what we could do is we could take a little bit of our pizza restaurant and build a a little play area in the corner, and then we could have kids' night on Thursday nights," and it's kind of like the thing in our little local town that our pizza restaurant does this big thing, "Bring your kids along, they get a special deal, they can play in the little play area in the corner, adults can sit and enjoy their pizza," because you know you can target people that might be interested in this more specific offer uh more accurately; it might then justify actually creating the more specific offer. You're like, "Okay, instead of everyone just searching for running shoes, there are people now searching for cross-country running shoes suitable for the snow," right? So you're like, "Okay, instead of just having like a more basic range, we can now create all these different products that are suitable for those use cases because we know we can put ads in front of people that would want that because they're searching for it," right? So effectively, what, you know, to to bring this back to a bit more of a bird's-eye view, you've all heard, if you're interested in marketing, digital marketing, "riches are in niches," right? That you get more specific and you can make really good money because you can perfectly serve a very specific niche, very specific audience. Well, this trend in search behavior absolutely facilitates that for us as Google advertisers. We can get more specific with our keywords, we can tighten up our ad groups and have more ad groups, we can match the ad copy to the specific searches, which is going to increase click-through rates, increase conversion rates, and we can even create offers that may not have had an audience before. You know, you're like, "How do we, yeah, I think there are some there's a small section of audience would be really interested in children's night pizza restaurant, but how did we reach those people?" That'd be quite tricky to do before. Now we know we can get them perfectly right; we can go ahead and create that specific offer, or create that cross-country running shoe for when it's snowing or, you know, 10° below, whatever it is, you know, the specific thing that some a small segment of people want, but enough for it to still be a lucrative um offer.
Given the massive changes we are seeing to Google ads right now—not just in search behavior as we've covered in this video, but a whole bunch of other areas of Google ads as well—it's really important to stay up to date with the very latest Google ads strategies and techniques, and that's exactly what I do in this video. In that video, I share the new Google ads secret tips and strategies that are working really well right now that we're using to get really good results for our clients. So go ahead and check it out.